Geez everybody does it.......
Posted on 09/24/2002 11:51:53 AM PDT by Protagoras
Don’t Start the Second Gulf War
The case against war with Iraq.
By Doug Bandow
August 12, 2002, 9:00 a.m.
President George W. Bush says that he hasn't made up his mind about "any of our policies in regard to Iraq," but he obviously has. To not attack after spending months talking about the need for regime change is inconceivable. Unfortunately, war is not likely to be the simple and certain procedure that he and many others seem to think.
Lots of arguments have been offered on behalf of striking Baghdad that are not reasons at all. For instance, that Saddam Hussein is an evil man who has brutalized his own people.
Certainly true. But the world is full of brutal regimes that have murdered their own people. Indeed, Washington ally Turkey's treatment of its Kurds is scarcely more gentle than Iraq's Kurdish policies.
Moreover, the U.S. warmly supports the royal kleptocracy next door in Saudi Arabia, fully as totalitarian, if not quite as violent, as Saddam's government. Any non-Muslim and most women would probably prefer living in Iraq.
Also cited is Baghdad's conquest of Kuwait a dozen years ago. It is a bit late to drag that out as a justification for invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam. He is far weaker today and has remained firmly contained.
Richard Butler, former head of the U.N. Commission on Iraq, complained to the Senate Foreign Relations that Iraq had violated international law by tossing out arms inspectors. In fact, there are often as many reasons to flout as to obey U.N. rules. Washington shouldn't go to war in some abstract pursuit of "international law."
Slightly more plausible, at least, is the argument that creating a democratic system in Iraq would provide a useful model for the rest of the Mideast. But that presupposes democracy can be easily planted, and that it can survive once the U.S. departs.
Iraq suffers from significant internal stresses. Convenient professions of unity in pursuit of democracy from an opposition once dismissed by Mideast special envoy and retired Gen. Anthony Zinni as "silk-suited, Rolex-wearing guys in London" offer little comfort and are likely to last no longer than have similar promises in Afghanistan.
Also problematic are Kurdish demands for autonomy and Shiite Muslim resistance to the central government. One defense official told the Washington Post: "I think it is almost a certainty that we'd wind up doing a campaign against the Kurds and Shiites." Wouldn't that be pretty? <
There are external threats as well. Particularly worrisome would be covert and possibly overt action by Iran, with which Baghdad fought a decade-long war and which might see intervention against a weakened Iraq as an antidote to serious political unrest at home.
Indeed, the U.S. backed Baghdad in its conflict with Iran and decided not to depose Saddam in 1991, in part out of fear of Iranian aggression throughout the Gulf should Iraq no longer provide a blocking role. Keeping the Iraqi Humpty Dumpty together after a war might not be easy.
Moreover, while Americans might see America's war on Iraq as a war for democracy, most Arabs would likely see it as a war for Washington. If the U.S. deposes Saddam, but leaves in place friendly but despotic regimes elsewhere — such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia — few Arabs would take America's democracy rhetoric seriously. Nor should they. Yet to go to war against everyone, including presumably Iran, Syria, and maybe others, would have incalculable consequences.
Saddam's complicity in September 11 would present a good argument for devastating retaliation for an act of war, but there's no evidence that he was involved. All that exists is a disputed meeting, which might not have occurred, in the Czech Republic between hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi official.
Certainly Saddam shed no tears over the thousands who died on that tragic day, but he has never been known to promote groups which he does not control. In contrast to Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein is no Muslim fanatic looking forward to his heavenly rewards; moreover, he heads a government and nation against which retaliation is simple.
Probably the best, at least the most fearsome, argument for overthrowing Saddam is the prospect of Baghdad developing weapons of mass destruction. Yet if nonproliferation should be enforced by war, Washington will be very busy in the coming years.
The problem is not just countries like Iran and North Korea, which seem to have or have had serious interest in developing atomic weapons. It is China, which could use them in any conflict with the U.S. over, say, Taiwan. And India, Pakistan, and Russia, which face unpredictable nationalist and theological currents, enjoy governments of varying instability, and offer uncertain security over technical know-how as well as weapons.
Potentially most dangerous is Pakistan's arsenal. The government of Pervez Musharraf is none too steady; Islamabad long supported the Taliban and its military and intelligence forces almost certainly contain al Qaeda sympathizers. It is easy to imagine nuclear technology falling into terrorist hands.
An Iraqi nuclear capability seems less frightening in comparison. Saddam would not use them against America, since to do so would guarantee his incineration. Israel possesses a similarly overbearing deterrent.
Would Baghdad turn atomic weapons over to al Qaeda or similarly motivated terrorists? Not likely.
First, it would be extraordinary for Saddam to give up a technology purchased at such a high price. Second, Baghdad would be the immediate suspect and likely target of retaliation should any terrorist deploy nuclear weapons, and Saddam knows this.
Third, Saddam would be risking his own life. Al Qaeda holds secular Arab dictators in contempt and would not be above attempting to destroy them as well as America.
Of course, the world would be a better place without Saddam's dictatorship. But there are a lot of regimes that should, and eventually will, end up in history's dustbin. That's not a good reason to initiate war against a state which poses no direct, ongoing threat.
Especially since war often creates unpredictable consequences. Without domestic opposition military forces to do America's dirty work, Washington will have to bear most of the burden. The task will be more difficult and expensive without European support and Saudi staging grounds.
If Iraq's forces don't quickly crumble, the U.S. might find itself involved in urban conflict that will be costly in human and political terms. If Baghdad possesses any weapons of mass destruction, Saddam will have an incentive to use them — against America, Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia — since Washington would be dedicated to his overthrow.
Further, the U.S. would be sloshing gasoline over a combustible political situation in friendly but undemocratic Arab regimes stretching from North Africa to Southeast Asia. Israelis and Palestinians are at war, America continues to fight Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan as the pro-western government teeters on chaos, fundamentalist Muslims rule western Pakistan, and Muslim extremists are active a dozen other countries. Yet the administration wants to invade Iraq. Riots in Egypt, a fundamentalist rising in Pakistan, a spurt of sectarian violence in Indonesia, and who knows what else could pose a high price for any success in Iraq.
War is a serious business. Making war on a country which does not threaten the U.S. is particularly serious. Even if the optimists who think a campaign against Iraq would be easy are right, and we can only hope they are, war should be a last resort. As House Majority Leader Richard Armey warned, an unprovoked attack "would not be consistent with what we have been as a nation or what we should be as a nation."
There's certainly no hurry to go to war. Nothing is different today from September 10, 2001, or any time since Iraq was ousted from Kuwait. Observes Jim Cornette, formerly an expert in biological warfare with the Air Force: "We've bottled [Saddam] up for 11 years, so we're doing okay."
There are times when Washington has no choice but to fight. Iraq is not such a place and now is not such a time.
— Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan.
DEBKAfiles readers were not taken aback by the Israeli Shin Beit's (Security Service) disclosure on September 23 that it had custody of a three-man Palestinian cell from Ramallah who trained in Iraq with Iraqi instructors in the execution of strikes against Israeli targets - in the company of al Qaeda terrorists.
Their admissions - which link Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in a collaborative relationship for the pursuit of terror were included in a sensitive file carried to Washington this week by a team of Israeli officers.
DEBKAfile pointed attention to this association right after the Passover massacre at the Park Hotel in Netanya on March 27, 2002. Three months earlier, in January 2002, we highlighted secret rendezvous taking place regularly in Amman between two childhood friends: Col. Tawfiq Tirawi, chief of West Bank General Intelligence and one of Arafat?s most trusted aides, and another Palestinian terror executive, Mohammad Abbas, known as Abu al-Abbas, head of the Baghdad-based Arab Liberation Front. The two men were born and went to school in the village of Tirah north of Ramallah. From 1991, they have been meeting regularly in Amman, which is halfway between the West Bank and Baghdad, to trade directives, intelligence, funds and messages between their respective bosses.
Abu al-Abbas is better known for hijacking the Achille Lauro pleasure craft in 985 in an operation ordered by Arafat and throwing the American Jewish Leon Klinghoffer overboard in his wheelchair.
Tirawi's importance to Arafat is such that is willing to see his government compound in ruins rather than hand his senior aide over with his pockets full of incriminating secrets.
According to DEBKAfiles military and counter-terror sources, the Israeli officers brought to Washington two further pieces of information:
1. The interrogations of Palestinian and Iraqi terrorists and agents picked up in recent weeks in the West Bank, at the Jordan Bridges crossings from Jordan and in Jordan itself, yielded the discovery that Yasser Arafat's hand was behind the assassination in Baghdad on August 16 of the terror master Abu Nidal, his notorious former partner turned rival, with four of his aides. Indeed, Tirawi and Abu al-Abbas were entrusted with setting up the murder. Arafat asked Saddam Hussein to get rid of Abu Nidal, claiming he was on the point of passing to American parties in the Persian Gulf evidence of the three-way partnership-for-terror forged by Arafat, Saddam and bin Laden. Arafat relayed his request to the Iraqi leader through Ahmed Azzam, Arafat's special envoy to Baghdad, together with Al-Abbas.
Saddam gave his assent at the beginning of August. The plan of operation entailed Abu Nidal's regular contacts in Iraqi intelligence calling on him and, when he opened the door unsuspectingly, standing aside for the Palestinians to burst in and do the deed.
2. The second piece of information relayed to Washington exposes another hidden facet of the working relationship binding Arafat and his PLO with Saddam and al Qaida. That facet surfaced after Italy seized a ship on August 5, carrying a suspected al Qaeda cell of 15 Pakistanis. The ship's smudged name appeared to be Sara. The Pakistanis were detained in Sicily after US naval intelligence deciphered coded messages and gathered evidence on some of the men. One coded note used the expression "united in matrimony", which was similar to a reference intercepted during the first attack on New York's TwinTowers in 1993.
DEBKAfiles counter-terror sources reveal exclusively one of the most telling discoveries of the Italian investigation: The Sara was owned by the same shipper as the Karine-A, the freighter captured by Israel last January with 50 tonnes of arms bound for the Palestinian Authority. Both vessels were also purchased by the same Palestinian-Iraqi company; the Palestinians negotiated the purchase with money put up by Iraq. Both ships flew the Tongan flag of convenience.
Whereas the Karine-A carried a cargo of contraband weapons provided by Iran, the Sara carried a suspected al Qaeda terrorist cell.
Arafat may protest he is innocent of terrorist activities and make a show of demanding a halt to terror. However, ample evidence continues to pile up demonstrating his hand in violence not only against Israel, but also in al Qaeda?s global terror campaign and Iraq's machinations against the United States.
This came from an Israeli organization called Gamla. Yesterday, Condi Rice began to put forward the case that Al-Qaeda is in Iraq as did Donald Rumsfeld. In his UN speech, President Bush said that Iraq has not stopped its association with terror as pursuant one of the 16 resolutions that Iraq is ignoring.
In 1993, the NYPD and the NY District Attorneys office believed that Iraq was involved in the 1st WTC bombing. Israeli intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Kuwaiti intelligence believed that Iraq was responsible for two bombings in Saudi Arabia, the latter one be Khobar Towers. Al-Qaeda took credit for those, along with the USS Cole and the 2 embassies in Africa.
If you watch the timing of the these bombings you will see that they coincide with UN or US pressure on Iraq for resolution violations. This is not an accident or a coincidence.
I believe you are both right and wrong when you said that the President has not raised Iraq's sponsorship of terrorists attacks against the US... The evidence has been there throughout the 1990's. The President hasn't made the terror link the major focal point, which I think is a mistake, but he has made the case. It has always been the 2nd or 3rd point in a litnany of reasons on why we should go after Saddam. I would make it my first. But it is this association with terror, both with Al Qaeda and with the PA that has caused the fear for weapons of mass destruction.
State sponsored terrorism is real. Iraq is up to the neck in it.
Yes it is...
We will have to disagree about Iraq. But, I think they are as guilty as all get out.
And about the post about the Russian paratroopers from GAMLA, that must have been before I started getting their little updates... My answer to your "unsubstantiated comments" is oh, well... I've heard and read things just as wrong on CNN, FOX, and the major networks, and even here on Free Republic... So, I find it wise to believe 1/2 of the things I read 1/2 of the time.
Have you read Dr. Laurie Mylroie's book on A Study of Revenge... you might want to check it out... it is interesting reading.
Yes, I do. The Administration's citing of Iraq training of al Queda terrorists has not been corroberated by any open sources that I have read.
So, because there are no "open sources" you do not accept the NSA's statements? Do you believe that she is lying? Or are you merely saying that you are reserving judgement until her statements are supported by "open sources"? If the latter, I still think it would be consistent for you to back off your accusations that there is no Iraq-terrorism link and put yourself back in the "undecided" column.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, not secularist Iraq, is the country that sponsored and continues to shield, arm, and train 9-11 suicide bombers and Iran is who the US should be bombing and invading not Iraq.
I believe that the Adminstration has every intention of taking on Iran. Thus their inclusion in the "Axis of Evil." So it doesn't seem to me that you disagree with the Administration regarding the overall goal regarding Iran, only the timing and the structure of the war strategy against them. Do you acknowledge that it is possible that the Administration plan vis-a-vis Iran is to isolate them (in part by removing Saddam from power) and covertly foment the ongoing internal dissent that has manifested in student uprisings?
“There clearly are contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there’s a relationship here,” Rice said.
She said much of the information was coming from al-Qaida operatives captured since the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings. This included several senior leaders whom the U.S. alleges organized terrorist attacks.
“We clearly know that there were in the past and have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al-Qaida going back for actually quite a long time,” Rice said.
“We know too that several of the (al-Qaida) detainees, in particular some high-ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al-Qaida in chemical weapons development.”
I don't have the full transcript, so I'm not sure who the "we" is that she's referring to. I assume she means the Administration security staff.
Do you believe her? Yes, no, or undecided?
I say "yes." I can respect "undecided." But I don't see how anyone not unthinkingly opposed to the Administration can say "no."
This fact is corroberated by Newsmax.com in a a 9/11/02 article.
Then, when talking about Condi Rice, this:
I find her credibility in doubt.
You are a laugh a minute, kid.
Notice Our Tax Dollars at work this morning? ..... But, "Geez everybody does it....
Oh, certainly! Far better than that Condi Rice. She'll just twist and distort the facts, if she even knows them. (This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?)
We are both stymied by the same lack of information. So, it comes down to an issue of trust. There are political, editorial, and intelligence people either we believe or we don't. There is no argument that I can put forward to change your mind if one doesn't believe or agree with the source that we use to base and form our opinions.
I have a hard time with the generality of "well what about China, or what about this..." These kind of arguments remind of me of children who are in trouble and instead of addressing that issue, they say, "well Mikey did... or Sarah did..."
That doesn't mean that I am letting China, North Korea, etc. off the hook, but the argument isn't about them. The argument is about Islamic militants. I believe that Iraq sponsors, forments, provides political cover for the terror we have watched during the last 12 years. Iraq is not in a box.
Saddam Hussein is being given the opportunity to stand-down and disarm and to stop the export of terror against Israel and the US. He is not. It is the same song and dance we have seen. He doesn't have to be invaded. He can stand down. So far, he is choosing not to. This country can't afford to allow him to continue.
Can Saddam destroy us as it stands. No! But, how many 9/11's are you willing to put up with why he remains in his box and continues to send Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hamas to do his bidding. For me, one was enough.
Iraq is the immediate threat... Saddam poses the most serious threat. Arguments about China, etc. are distractions against the task ahead.
I love questions that say "well, there are 60 dictators, should we invade them as well." As if, suddenly, those who want to bring down Saddam want to go out and invade everyone we see. That argument sucks... and it is brought up because it is very hard to defend. Now, I have to defend that and the issue isn't about 60 dicators, but the one who seems to have his hand in every major terror incident over the last 12 years... and before that too.
As for the rest of your last paragraph... I agree. Appeasement is weakness and it never gets you anywhere. But, do we fight all fronts at one time... or prioritize the threats.
We have different priorties. Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the PA (don't forget that little rat nest of terror). But not all by invasion. If the news out of Iran is true, and Iran is teetering, then maybe we push. Syria will hardly stand on its own... but this is pure conjecture I realize, because the little Assad is crazy... Saudi Arabia... well, that will be worth a thread all by itself. But the Saudis must not be given a free pass. But since you and I aren't sitting in on the meeting between the President and the Prince, we have no idea what kind of pressure is being applied.
Mostly what we do on Free Republic is an exercise of what if's based on limited information. So, there is no one right or wrong here.
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